Many of us resolved not to attend this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner after WHCA president and MSNBC correspondent Eugene Daniels went out and found a vehemently anti-Trump comedian to serve as the featured speaker. It was a continuation of the pronounced bias shown by the WHCA, but Daniels somehow succeeded in amplifying that message this year with the selection of Amber Ruffin. The WHCA stood with Ruffin despite her apparently doubling down on her views. It was not until shortly before the dinner that the WHCA threw in the towel. After that history, it was bizarre to read that Daniels offered a defiant speech, claiming that “what we are not is the opposition.” That was not intended as one of the comedic lines of the evening.
The WHCA has long shown a political bias in such comedians, but nothing quite as brazen as Ruffin. Even for the WHCA, it was beyond the pale and many of us had resolved not to attend this year.
Notably, the prior year, the dinner (which I attended) featured Colin Jost. The comedian (before the election) made a tearful comparison of Biden to his late Irish firefighting grandfather. It was nothing short of a public campaign endorsement.
They then selected someone who reportedly views the Trump administration as a gang of “murderers” who “feel like [they are] human beings, but … shouldn’t get to feel that way, because [they are] not.” Ruffin declared that no one wanted Trump to attend.
It was another blue plate special to be served up at the WHCA dinner.
However, this was about as inviting for Trump and Republicans as a meal with the Donner party.
While some of us were appalled by his choice, Daniels gave a full-throated endorsement of Ruffin and insisted that “Amber’s unique talents are the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate.”
It was only after Ruffin continued to double down that the WHCA felt compelled to cancel her appearance.
In an appearance on the Daily Beast podcast this week, Ruffin said she was told by the WHCA that “you need to be equal, and make sure that you give it to both sides and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be freaking doing that, dude, under no circumstances.'”
Daniels insisted last night that
“We are not the enemy of the state…Our responsibility is not to align with any one party or any one of gender, but to serve the people of this country with integrity and dedication. We care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public’s trust. What we are not is the opposition,” Daniels said to applause, before appearing to push back on remarks made in the past by President Trump.”
I credit Axios’ Alex Thompson for calling out the press for failing to properly report on former President Joe Biden’s declining mental capacity: “Being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story.”
However, I am not sure it was a case of “missing” the story. Many outside of the mainstream media were writing about it. Fox News was reporting on it. The White House correspondents simply refused to pursue the story as they reported denials from Democratic leaders and White House staff.
The statement also ignores the host of other stories ignored by the media and the pronounced bias shown in stories like the Biden influence peddling scandal and other controversies. Biden’s incapacity was only acknowledged when it could no longer be denied.
The Dem’s are hurting their party, and their main issues and causes, by taking extreme wingnut positions. The left and right COASTS are not the average American voter.of EITHER party. Trying to FORCE FEED these extreme positions harms their party and their causes because people stop following them. That is why Trump was re-elected, with a majority public vote this time around.ONLY when the Dems flounder more, to the point of total loss of relevancy by consistently losing both houses of Congress and the WH, will needed change come. The only other option is permanent loss of political control and ability to succeed in any part of their agenda. I grew up a full on hardcore CA Democrat, when the Dems stood for ALL working class people. That started changing in the 1990’s, when public unions took control of the party, and extreme social positions became the norm. After that me, and a bazillion others like me, became Independents. Will never be a Republican, but that is where my votes goes most of the time. Independents in CA are the majority [party] today. These same voters were what elected Jesse Ventura in MN, under the exact same reasoning.
Anyone who says they missed Biden’s mental state is a liar.
There’s always Marxine Watters and Dizzy-Lizzy Warren …….
Well hell, don’t you know? Every page of the MSM is an opinion page because they have taken up the task of saving the world. Considering such a worthwhile endeavor what’s all the hullabaloo about telling the truth got to do with it? So what is wrong with telling you to shut your mouth when such a worthy cause is at stake? They are a fine bunch who tell you to shut your mouth and accept everything we say or else you will soon hear a knock on your door. What is the definition of opposition?
Delenda est WHCA.
I love the “we missed the story”. They didn’t miss the story, they actively ridiculed and silence anyone who brought up Biden’s clear cognitive decline. Remember, “cheap fakes” and “sharp as a tack”?
Not the opposition? In 2018, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded the staff of The Washington Post and The New York Times the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting “(for) deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the public’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connection to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration”. The Pulitzer Prize Board was comprised mostly of journalists, some of whom worked for The Washington Post and the NYT (and NPR, the Boston Globe, USA Today, Bloomberg News, The Atlantic, Pro Publica; see: https://www.pulitzer.org/board/2018). The only problem was that the claim that Trump, et al, conspired with Russia was refuted in the Mueller Report. WAPO and the NYT completely missed that the Russia collusion story originated and was implemented by the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign. I don’t know what is worse, these “journalists” not returning their Pulitzer or the Pulitzer Board not demanding that they do so. “Not the opposition”? Right.
The media are not the LOYAL opposition. They must be eliminated.
Memes of a beheaded President, Samantha Bee’s ‘feckless c!nt’ remark, burning-looting jobs posted on Craigslist along with ‘paid surrogacy’ offers. Key a Tesla & you will have the mob’s approval.
This is who the ‘White House Correspondents’ are, this is who many of us have become.
Is this really still ‘mainstream’ media or just a wheezing corpse on its last gasp? Stay tuned…
There are so many things we cannot un-hear or un-see anymore – so much more-so now that the list is too long..
I remember being us addressed as ‘my fellow Americans’, and not by just one President either.
Unity is more important than diversity.
I fear the remedy is going to be more painful than what anyone predicted.
“Biden’s incapacity was only acknowledged when it could no longer be denied.”…Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks
A better translation would be “ The matter speaks for itself”
“ It was another blue plate special to be served up at the WHCA dinner.
However, this was about as inviting for Trump and Republicans as a meal with the Donner party.”
Awesome line.
Talking to, or listening to any prog-inebriated tool is similar to holding a conversation the The Cheshire Cat.
How would Plato illustrate the error of their logic? He couldn’t, and neither could anyone who is rational.
And therein lies our dilemma. How can you apply the concepts of Western law and reason to ideological fanatics?
I would like to see offered, here, a blueprint for successfully enumerating and illustrating the gross errors in fact, logic, and reason in a test case of this recently arrested partisan judge. I doubt if anything short of a 2×4 to the cranium followed by a lobotomy will prove effective.
whimsicalmama-Well said. Thats does tend to get their attention for at least 30-60 seconds. Of course it tends to be more pronounced and of longer duration if they are actually assaulted or robbed on the street by one of the groups they are trying to protect.
The WHCA isn’t the only entertainment that’s driving on the shoulder these days. I watched Conclave last night. Intentional or not, this movie was an insult to the Church, the Cardinals, and Catholics. I’m not even Catholic, and I was so disgusted, I nearly stroked out.
I watched Conclave because it had a great cast. Really, with Hollyweird these days, that should be the first sign of alarm. It was predictable and absurd, the watermarks of woke entertainment. Being predictable and absurd at the same time takes real effort, but they always find a way.
Here’s the plot: if you’re not woke, you’re not a real Catholic; you’re just an NPC manipulated by racism and misogyny. That’s how Hollywood always portrays conservatives, so there’s no need for a spoiler alert. Every bed monster conjured in the fever dreams of the far Left makes an appearance, and every bed monster holds the rank of Cardinal.
IMHO, at a time when the Left in Europe is cancelling elections and criminalizing dissent, the Church really needs to send a message by electing a traditional Pope, not a leftist. The leftists who made Conclave clearly want to “own” the Catholic Church.
The Vatican denounced the film. Naturally the audience increased.
If I had seen the condemnation, I would not have watched 🙁
Diogenes, it was a movie. How is that different than the controversy brought up by the “Davinci Code”?
It was a shocking plot twist that made it famous. Big deal. If it offended catholics, so what?
It was trying to convince Catholics that there’s only one kind of correct Catholicism: leftism. It wasn’t just a mystery like the Da Vinci code.
“This movie was an [intentional] insult to the Church, the Cardinals, and Catholics.”
Diogenes, I added the word *intentional* because I understand the movie is based on a book by Robert Harris. I’ve read several of Harris’s books, though not this one. He is a sensational writer who sticks as closely to the truth as possible. I might read this book to see what he actually wrote, but if anyone believes the movie represents the book, they insult the author.
I can’t prove every distortion was intentional without research, but at the end of the movie, the new Pope states he is XX. There is no way an XX person would match the movie’s physical characterization, so my strong guess is that Harris, staying true to realism, portrayed him as intersex with XY genes (Not XX, a woman).
I also doubt Harris portrayed the Church in the same slanted fashion the movie did. If anything, knowing Harris, he would investigate some of the Church’s failings with a fair eye, not a hit job.
This is exactly what Hollywood does to good books that try to reveal history realistically.
Allen, rumor has it that a prospective Pope would undergo a medical examination on the sedes stercoraria to make sure he had testes. Current opinion suggests that that story is apocryphal (no pun intended).
I would expect a thorough physical exam just to rule out any candidate with STD’s. The movie had a they/them snook into the conclave by the liberal, deceased Pope so that they/them would not get a physical exam before the Conclave convened. The deceased Pope saw this subterfuge as necessary to get they/them elected to the Papacy. Only they/them was portrayed as worthy. All the remaining Cardinals were portrayed in a pathetic (some insulting) light. It was a lib wet dream.
I actually knew a priest who was outed as a nonce. He was an outspoken Democrat. They’re coming for your children.
It’s always easier to add to the apocrypha than to subtract from the apocryphal.
Hit the button too soon. If you haven’t read An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris you might be interested. It is about the Dreyfus affair. From that book along with others he wrote, you can see that the movie was corrupted by some leftist freak.
Fraud is committed by either commission or omission. The mainstream news media employs both.
The DC media did not just miss the boat. They missed the loading dock, the wharf, the 250,000 ton ocean liner, the ocean, the planet that contained the ocean and missed the trees and the forest, both.
Anybody with half a brain could clearly see we had a presidents without a functional brain.
All they had to do was look at videos with sound that were recorded in 1992, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024 and they would have seen clearly that the previous president was circling the drain. It was willful. Even the Democrats are not that stupid (well some are).
The worst is the former First Lady who continues to parade him in front of the world as he further deteriorates. She has no shame as his obvious worsening infirmity only embarrasses him and the nation he once led. What purpose does this serve?
The DC media were co-conspirators of this criminal charade.
The white house should next disallow ANY member of the White House Correspondents from press briefings.
Democrats are FIGHTING A Civil War, their 2nd. Time to FIGHT BACK!
Thank you professor for pointing out the lack of self-awarness MSM has and how irrelevant they have become.
“Biden’s incapacity was only acknowledged when it could no longer be denied.” It would be more accurate to say: “Biden’s incapacity was only acknowledged when it no longer mattered.” Even after the disastrous debate performance, there were journalists who refused to acknowledge the obvious. It was only when the Democrat leaders abandoned Bident that the obvious was finally widely acknowledged.
They let you in to that dinner before, Turls?? I thought that dinner was for correspondents, not hack social media influencers. Granted the fox table goes…, but people just laugh at you guys for being idiots.
People laugh at commentators who refer to Prof Turley as “Turls”.
Not more than I laugh at you.
This particular version of anonymous is a paid democrat troll. He she or it feeds on the rebuttal. Ignore it.
Always amazed at the sheer idiocy on this blog that thinks anyone would pay to try to educate you. Lol.
I have been reading this column for a few months now and have arrived at the conclusion that “Anon..” either suffers under a form of multiple personality disorder or is in fact more than one person trolling J. Turley. For someone who apparently has no regard for JT, he spends a lot of time and effort dominating the conversation after each column. There may be an obsessive compulsive component to his disorder. Now and then he contributes an opinion that is on topic, thoughtful and cogent. Most of his writings are snarky, critical and demeaning towards JT. It seems like it is coming from more than one writer.
Maybe the cumulative effect of all those Biden Zoom-meetings you attend, has taken its toll on your connection with reality. In a simpler form – “Put the jug down.”
Daniels insisted last night that
“. . . but to serve the people of this country . . .”
In a twisted sense, his statement is accurate.
The Left views R’s as “deplorables” and “trash” — nonhuman. So the Left is serving the only ones it considers “people” — Leftists.
Yet the dems/libs put Mr Hogg in a position of power in the DNC.
Who are the crazies?
Every morning I wake up with a smile. Because I know some-how or some-way the dem-o-rat party will find a way to look even more dumber then they were yesterday.
2025 is going to be a great year for many of us.
Enjoy the ride folks.